Number one: I'm worried because I have too many links pointing to my site from one particular domain. Maybe it's a site-wide link. ... If you have 80,000 links pointing to you from one particular site, don't stress. This isn't going to kill your SEO.

I have a bigger problem. I have a site linking to me, it used a very competative keyword that I ranked in the top 3 for several years, and it took me several years to get there. Now this garbage site linked to me using that keyword and I no longer show up for it (I havent checked past 8 pages). Google webmaster tools shows them as the first domain in my "Sites Linking To Me" with a whopping 539,411 linked pages.

So this site is killing me and my traffic dropped in half again the day Penguin rolled out. It's putting me out of business. I asked the guy to remove the link over a year ago! I have no idea who he is or why he linked to me in the first place - could it be a competitor trying to hurt my rankings? I have no idea, but I am in a serious world of hurt from it and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.

Oddly enough we are in very similar positions. Although we are more of a development shop than SEO, but we have just started offering SEO services.

I was involved with a company right around the bust and some "investors" which were actually cultures came in and took the company apart and sold off all its assets, pink slipped everyone, etc. so I am very wary when it comes to investors.

It does get tiresome though, just making enough to cover salaries and overhead every month. If we were profiting 20-30 percent instead of under 10 it would be a different story.

I have also considered financing the ventures myself, we don't have any "next big thing" planned but we do have some proven profit centers and we are working on developing them in house - the issue is the same, should it take 18 months or 6 months.

Its amazing how similar our stories are actually, my wife and I started our company with our credit cards and no money in 1995, just starting making a decent living in 99, then 9/11 and broke again. Rebuilt the company and finally by 03 we were making money again, from the two of us to 12 full-time employees.

I wish you the best of luck - feel free to contact me if you want a second set of eyes on a decision.